Give Me Some Truth
by heartsways
Summary: Another series of vignettes. Five times Emma believes Regina and one time she doesn't. Set in Storybrooke, post-curse.
1. Chapter 1

ONE – EVEN IF IT HURTS ME

Emma sometimes stays afterwards. There's a quiet that descends over them once their breathing returns to a more manageable pace and Regina can almost imagine that this is what normal people do. It's more unsettling than the sex – these moments where she can feel a leg thrown carelessly over her own, or a hand brushing absently over the smooth planes of her stomach. Sex is something Regina handles with an adept, bruising touch, taking what she needs and giving what Emma wants without the blonde even asking. Not that she has to anymore; they've been doing this for long enough that Regina has Emma's predilections stored away in her brain like the words of magic that she tried so hard to learn, so long ago.

_Yes_; she tells herself with a rush of nausea in her gut. This is what _normal_ people do. People who aren't at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to what's good, what's right, and what's broken beyond repair. People who are like she once was when Daniel was alive and her imagined, blissfully happy life stretched out over years where she envisaged waking up beside him every day.

Regina sometimes dreams of him, even now. She still wonders what it would have been like to lie in his arms and listen to the strong, powerful thud of his heart under her ear. Then, other times, she wakes in the night from the memory of that heart, crushed in her mother's hand, torn out of the body she tried to awaken even as it turned cold in her arms.

It pains her how a broken heart can still continue to beat and did so for long, empty years yawning over the abyss where love once resided. She used to wish for death to release her, to assuage the constant hurt that loss echoed in her chest. And then, after the hurt had subsided to a dull ache, she wished for vengeance.

Now, though, she just wishes for peace. It might not come easily – or at all – but in these moments where her body is sated, her mind can begin to convince itself that the rest of her is comforted, too.

Emma groans and stretches, pressing her hands up against the headboard, body lengthening in the bed. Pushing herself up into a sitting position, she runs a hand through her tousled hair and lets out a sigh.

"I could stay here all day," she announces.

Regina looks up at Emma's back; there are welts on the toned flesh there and she flexes her fingers by her sides. Of all the ways in which she's given vent to the dissatisfaction that rumbles in her chest like distant thunder, Emma is the only person who gladly invites a touch that's hardened with it; fingers that claw at her and sometimes break the skin.

Perhaps it's a release for them both. Regina doesn't know much about Emma's past, but she can feel it sometimes beneath her fingertips in the mottled texture of old scars. And yet Emma begs her in half-spoken whispers to drive deeper, grasp harder, to hurt and clutch at her.

Whatever it is between them, it's a contract they've both entered into with the sort of weary surrender that normal people – not people like _them_, Regina reminds herself – never have to feel.

And yet, here they are anyway, pretending that they're like everyone else.

"If that's what you want to do…" Regina leaves the offer hanging even as Emma swings her legs over the side of the bed and leans forwards, resting her elbows onto her knees.

"I can't," Emma says. Her voice is heavy, ponderous with deliberation. "I have to get back for – for Henry."

She sighs again and Regina feels the urge to reach out and touch those red lines she's scraped down Emma's back. Her hand, twitching by her side, curls into a fist, fingernails digging into her palm. She's had bodies in her bed because she wanted them there; they were similarly dismissed at her own will, too. But she's begun to miss Emma's presence from the moment the blonde leaves. Despite what she tells herself when she tries to soothe her ragged nerves with whiskey and solitude, this has started to mean something.

"Of course," Regina says quietly, settling for acquiescence rather than the weakness that care places in her chest.

Shoving her hair back from her face, Emma grabs at her clothes, shaking them out and tugging on a crumpled white tank top. She stands, sliding her underwear up over slender hips and reaches for her pants. Regina watches in silence, knowing that if Emma turns to look at her right now, they're still too warm from lovemaking to return to the distance that necessarily exists between them. She relies on Emma to perpetuate it when she can't; to redefine and reaffirm the barriers that have to be in place.

It's what's safest, after all.

"I can bring him over for dinner, if you like," Emma suggests, fastening her jeans, fingers toying with the button as she glances across the bed towards Regina. It takes her breath away sometimes, how beautiful the other woman is. There's an aura of resplendent calm about Regina when she's lying in bed, sheets half covering her body; it's as though she's just a woman, all the titles and past deeds stripped away. That, more than anything else, is the most seductive, dangerous and tempting part of her. It's a part Emma knows nobody ever sees and she can't help feeling that if they could, then things might be different.

Regina feigns nonchalance, but the gleam in her eyes at the prospect of spending time with Henry casts a sheen over her entire face and she shifts, picking at the sheet with the tips of her fingers.

"I would like that, thank you," she says politely.

Emma quirks a grin and shrugs. "He's your son as well as mine, Regina. No matter what's happened, he wants to see you."

"No matter what's happened?" Regina echoes, eyebrows rising a little. "You say that like people aren't baying for my blood, dear."

The sheet around her body is lifted higher, covering any traces of vulnerability until Regina is sitting up in bed, face hardened against the outside world, as always.

"Believe me, people are far too interested in their own lives to devote them to ending yours," Emma tells her.

It comes out far more nonchalant than she'd intended, but she knows that in the greater scheme of things, Storybrooke is barely clinging to the life that was created for them. The town's anger is directed towards Regina, but it manifests itself in a confused, splintered way that poses no tangible danger. Not that anyone else would ever _tell_ Regina that. Creating fear is really the only retaliation they have left now that Emma has vowed to keep order, to keep the law as she knows it, not to bend to the will of a realm that doesn't even exist in this world.

"Your optimism is heartening, if misguided," Regina says in that tone that indicates that it's not really a compliment at all.

"It's not optimism," Emma replies, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans, "it's just how it is."

Regina stares at the blonde and sees the faint lines that realism has etched across Emma's brow. She knows that she's responsible, in part, for putting some of them there and she can't say it doesn't rankle in her gut that she even cares.

"Everything's changed for people," Emma continues, shrugging a little. "But you've changed for them too and it's just going to take some time for them to get, you know, used to it."

"I changed for **Henry**," Regina asserts firmly. "Not for **them**."

Emma allows her gaze to sweep over the other woman, naked in more ways than one. And she thinks of how, before curses and Evil Queens and discovering that her parents are the stuff of fairytales, change was a concept she'd never have applied to Regina. Or herself.

Now things aren't so clear cut. Now she comes to Regina's house because she can't stay away. Because here, she feels more normal than she's ever felt before, parenting her kid with a woman she's sleeping with. Doing it _with_ someone rather than the way she's always done everything else: alone. And whatever this is that they've started, however and whenever it ends, Emma knows that she won't be standing on her own at the finish line. The truth is that she and Regina need one another almost as much as they need Henry, clinging on to the pretense of a relationship that should horrify them both.

"It wasn't just for Henry, was it?" Emma asks, and she's vaguely appalled at how needy her voice sounds. Being guarded with one another was how they always survived. But survival seems like it shouldn't be a way of life anymore. Not now there are so little lies left to hide behind.

Regina looks curiously at Emma, silent for a few seconds before she draws breath and gazes back down at the sheet, one hand smoothing out over the expensive cotton.

"The truth, Regina," Emma insists. She waits impatiently before puffing out her cheeks and turning for the door because whatever Regina's truths are, she knows that they don't come easily.

"At first -" Regina's voice comes from a small place – perhaps the smallest place inside her. As Emma spins around to look at her, Regina draws up her knees and puts her arms around them as though the action can help summon up the courage she needs. "At first, it was for him," she admits.

"But not anymore," Emma inclines her head and can see the other woman struggle with wanting to flee towards the safe arms of denial.

"No," Regina lets out a long sigh and shakes her head. "Not anymore."


	2. Chapter 2

TWO – WHO'S THE FOOL OF FOOLS AND WHO'S THE ENEMY?

Henry is shoveling cereal into his mouth by the time Emma comes downstairs and the smile she throws at him fades as she sees him poring over his book of fairytales. Mary Margaret hands her a steaming cup of coffee with a faint roll of her eyes as Emma shoots a questioning look at Henry, then back at her mother.

"Seriously, Henry?" she groans before taking a thankful gulp of coffee. "I thought you were done with the book."

"It's research," Henry mumbles through a mouthful of Cheerios, leafing through the pages and shaking his head.

"Research for **what**?" Emma asks.

He looks at her now, preparing for what is surely one of his diatribes on the contents of the book and what they mean, but Mary Margaret wags a finger at him. "No talking with your mouth full, Henry," she admonishes and his shoulders slump as he chews furiously on his cereal and hunches over the book once more.

"Henry thinks the book isn't telling him the full story of what happened," she leans in towards Emma and lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Back in Fairy Tale Land."

Letting his spoon fall back into his bowl with a clatter, Henry swallows audibly and literally bounces up and down on his stool at the breakfast table.

"It's **not**!" he says emphatically. "Something **did** happen…you know, to make my mom go bad."

Mary Margaret gives an impatient sigh and frowns. "Bad things happen to everyone, Henry," she begins slowly.

"No, but," Henry taps his finger on the book with all the authority of a learned professor, "she's not bad anymore. I think."

His face crumples into hopeful confusion as Snow hums to herself and cups her hands around her mug of tea. "That's debatable," she mutters.

"Hey," Emma protests mildly in the face of her mother's ire, "people **can** change, you know."

"Emma, I know you want to believe that, but when I think of all the chances we…**I** gave her to change that were thrown back in our face, I can't be so trusting. After what she did, there's no going back for her."

"Okay." Emma draws the word out slowly, watching Henry from the corner of her eye. "So there's no going back. What about going forwards instead?"

"What do you mean?" Snow barks, and it's clear that she's unwilling to even consider a future that has Regina in it. For a moment Emma just blinks at her, thinking of the ways in which a heart can be broken; ways that leave it intact and yet hollow it out like an empty shell.

"That she's not who she used to be," Emma finally says with a low tone. "That maybe, before, she didn't have any reason to change and now she does."

Both women turn to look at Henry, who, to his great credit, lifts his chin and stares solemnly back at them with a slow nod of his head.

"That's a lovely idea," Snow intones, "but she pretended to love me once to give her time to plot and scheme."

_And there it is_, Emma thinks. There's the source of Snow's real pain and her anger towards Regina. A child rejected after being lulled into a false sense of security; a child who thought they'd found something precious only to have it shattered in front of their very eyes without even realizing it was happening. It's what has shaped Snow's heart and hardened it against Regina. No matter what the Evil Queen did, it was that betrayal of trust that instigated Snow's reluctance to believe that anything good can still exist in the heart of her erstwhile stepmother.

"Listen," Emma says, putting her hand onto her mother's arm in an attempt at reassurance and comfort – and it still feels foreign now to want to offer it to a woman she barely knows – and moving closer to Mary Margaret, "what's that thing that you and my – you and David always say? Family is everything? They stick together? She's Henry's mom, no matter what anyone says. She raised him and – "

"That **woman**," Snow hisses with barely controlled disgust, "is **not** part of our family."

"But she was part of **yours**, right?" Emma retorts, and she can see the regret that flits briefly through her mother's eyes: a pained sorrow for what might have been – for what a young Snow White thought actually _was_. "I mean, she was practically your mother for a large part of your life."

"I thought she was," Snow says, her lips taut. "But she lied to me like she lied to everyone else and made a fool out of me when I was a child. I won't be fooled again. None of us will." Her fingers tighten so much around her mug that Emma reaches down and gently extracts it from Mary Margaret's hands for fear her mother might just crush it to pieces.

"She was so kind and gentle." Snow's eyes are misted with memory and her voice is laden with the sort of loss that only comes with death. "She told me the meaning of true love."

She blinks, her head snapping upwards and she shakes it as though the mere act of doing so can dispel the childish notions she'd entertained where Regina became the center of her entire life.

"But she told me that the woman I knew was gone and – and I didn't – didn't believe her until all hope had disappeared. Whatever part of Regina I used to care about simply doesn't exist anymore."

"That's why I'm doing research!" Henry pipes up, and Snow flushes as she's suddenly aware that he's been listening intently to her all this time. His fingers splay out on the book, over a picture of a woman whose face almost disappears in the cruel slash of red that forms her mouth, whose body is wrapped in garments of black that sweep behind her and touch the ground.

"I think she's sad," he tells them and there's an almost pained expression that crosses his boyish features as he frowns. "I think something made her so sad that she couldn't…she forgot how to feel happy and be kind anymore."

"It's not as simple as that," Snow says, but her voice is indulgent as she inclines her head towards Henry. She has memories of him in her class, of him telling her that his mother was the Evil Queen from the book that she'd given him. They seem like dreams now, mingling with a reality lived elsewhere, both merging in Snow's head to taunt her with truth and lies. Separating one from the other has become an almost daily struggle as she tries to remember who she is. The truth is that Snow isn't sure anymore, not really.

She looks so disconsolate that Emma can't help touching her again, the luxury of contact the very least that she can offer her mother. "I don't think any of this can be called **simple**," she says. "But if Henry wants to see her and be with her, then I'm not going to stand in his way."

"And when she hurts him like she hurt me?" Snow's voice is jabbing, angry, fearful.

"She won't."

Snow lets out a mocking laugh and steps back, away from Emma's touch. "You don't know her like I do, Emma. There's **nothing** that woman isn't capable of when it comes to getting her revenge."

"You know what, I **don't** know her like you do," Emma says sharply enough to make Snow's eyes widen. "And when I first came here, yeah, she was a grade A bitch – sorry Henry – and she tried to run me out of town. Hell, she tried to put me under the same sort of sleeping spell or whatever that she used on you. But if you believe in family like you say you do, then you'll know that I've probably inherited something from you and David."

Snow's brow furrows but she's wise enough to say nothing and instead folds her arms over her chest, looking at her daughter with a curious gaze.

"This whole true love thing…the fact that I'm the Savior and all this fairytale stuff. It has to mean **something**, right?" Emma places her mug onto the edge of the breakfast bar and shoves her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. "And I guess if you believe in destiny, then yours and Regina's are linked – tied together, I guess. But I grew up in the real world, where we don't have magic and true love…well," she snorts, "that's something we tell ourselves exists so we can feel better about our shitty lives."

Emma glances across the room again and winces a little. "Don't use that word, Henry."

Turning back to her mother, Emma shakes her head at the memory of dead-end paths she followed that only ever really led her here, in the end.

"And in the real world," she continues, "I learned to spot a liar."

"It's her superpower," Henry adds helpfully and Emma can't suppress the grin that momentarily springs to her lips.

"That's right," she nods gravely. "And you know, maybe Henry's inherited that from me. So if you don't think Regina's changed, or that she can't – "

"People don't change, Emma," Snow says, her voice strained with the truths she's told herself that supersede all realities in all worlds. "They only fool themselves into thinking that they can."

"Maybe," Emma shrugs and pushes her lips out in thoughtful consideration. "But even if you don't believe in **her**, you believe in me and Henry, right? And we've only **ever** known Regina here, in Storybrooke. So if you can't trust her, you have to trust us. You have to have faith in us."

She tilts her head onto one side and lets out a tiny breath of laughter. "Trust our superpower, okay?"

Snow looks over at Henry, who bobs his head up and down and looks at her with such pleading in his eyes that she feels her heart clench in her chest. She remembers crying as she banished Regina to live alone with her misery and knows that even in this world, even with Henry in her home, Regina has done precisely that for decades that only she remembers while Mary Margaret and David Nolan and everyone else in Storybrooke existed in ignorance of it.

Meeting Emma's gaze head on, Snow lets out a heavy sigh, shoulders falling.

"You believe her…Regina, I mean. You believe she's changed?"

Emma cocks a look at Henry and they share an unspoken agreement, one where they've both seen the defeat in Regina's eyes and witnessed the love in them, too: the love she has for a boy that will never subside or diminish.

"I believe she wants to," Emma tells her mother. "And isn't that enough, for now?"


	3. Chapter 3

THREE – SONGS OF LOVE AND LOSS

There's a book that Regina has. It's old, like Henry's book of fairytales, but more ornate, decorated with silver and a shiny red heart on the front. He knows that she hides it when he's around because he's seen her slipping it into the cupboard in the living room when she thinks he's not looking. But Henry is _always_ looking, his watchful gaze rarely leaving his adoptive mother when he visits. She tries to rally him round with games or meals that, if he's honest, he misses now that he no longer lives here full time, but she's getting worse at hiding the downturn of her mouth or the sadness that's put lines around her eyes that Henry never noticed before.

Maybe he sees everything differently now because everything _is_ different. Or maybe he's growing up. But he feels it now when she touches him, how her fingers slide through his hair with a changed affection and how when he winds his arms around her waist she leans into his embrace as though it's her salvation.

She's in the kitchen, making dinner. Henry can hear pots and pans rattling and it's a comforting sound, reminding him of the regularity with which they used to live. Sometimes, he thinks, routine is good. Adventures are exciting when they're contained in the pages of a book, but Henry has learned that when they're real and magic is an unchecked entity, adventures can be very frightening indeed.

He crosses the room, keeping an eye on the door that leads into the hallway, and stretches up to the mantle, fingers scrabbling for the key to the cupboard. Once opened, he sees the book and reaches out to grab it before his hand stops in midair.

It was curiosity and a desperate yearning for his own happy ending that was compelled him to indulge in the _last_ book he read. But what he found on those pages still leaves him unsatisfied; he knows there's more that remains undiscovered than can ever be written on paper. So as he presses his lips together and slides the book from the shelf inside the cupboard, Henry understands that the truth he's seeking might be found by reading between the lines.

Curling up on a nearby armchair, he runs his fingertips over the cover of the book, tracing the outline of the red heart. Whatever's inside must be pretty special for Regina to hide it away like she does. He takes a fortifying breath and, sliding his forefinger under the edge of the cover, begins to open –

"Henry, **no**!"

He starts, jerking around in his seat, the book falling from his fingers. Regina stands in the doorway, eyes wide and horrified before she rushes forwards and snatches the book from the floor, backing away from him and clutching it to her chest.

"How did you find this?" she demands in a voice not unlike the one that used to make him cower. For a moment, he's speechless, mouth opening and closing but nothing coming out.

"I asked you a question, Henry. How did you find this?" Now Regina holds the book up in front of her like it's a weapon, waving it back and forth.

"The key to the cupboard…you keep it behind the picture of us on the mantle," he stutters. "I saw you put it there once."

She moves towards him now and her face contorts at the way he flinches from her. Crouching in front of him, Regina puts her hand onto his leg, fingers digging in a little more firmly than is necessary, gaze boring into him.

"I know you're curious," she says, and her voice is trembling a little as she holds the book between them, "but this is **dangerous**, Henry."

"What is it?" he asks, and he knows instinctively that for all the times she dismissed his enquiries and told him lies, this time she'll give him the honesty he deserves; the truth that he's wanted for such a long time that he can't remember wanting anything else from her.

"It's a book of spells," Regina says simply. But the way her brow becomes lined tells Henry that it troubles her, having this book in the house. Even more so that he should be the one to bring it into the open.

"You said you wouldn't…you're using **magic **again?"

"No!" Regina presses against him, her fingers as insistent as her tone. "I said I wouldn't and I haven't. I've kept my promise to you. I really have." She sounds like an apologetic child, pleading for grace and forgiveness and the sort of belief in her that Henry has in Emma.

"I keep it here because…" she begins, and then stops, sighing loudly. Rising to her feet, Regina puts the book on top of the cupboard, wrapping her arms around her torso and looking away across the room to where the afternoon light is filtering in through the half-drawn shades.

"I keep it to remind me of what I was," she tells him. She turns and looks at him with that sad expression that sags at her shoulders and makes Henry chew at his lower lip. He's never really seen her look regretful before – not like this. It makes him want to hug her and he's almost out of the chair and rushing across the room when Regina lets out another sigh and shakes her head.

"I don't want to be like her again," she says quietly. "And magic – it was a big part of that. It was…it wasn't helpful or kind or any of the things you assume it is."

He sits up, inquisitive and alert and listening as hard as he can, because he can't ever remember her talking to him like this. He can't ever remember her telling him _anything_ that might actually _mean_ something.

"Magic is…well, it's very addictive," Regina nods and shivers a little at the memory of it, how it used to flood through her veins and fill her with such unutterable power that without it, she began to feel hollow.

"Like a drug," Henry suggests and Regina smiles benevolently at him, shrugging a little.

"I suppose so, yes," she admits. "It's the way I used to get everything. And it's also the way I lost everything."

Henry sees it, then: how scared she is. Growing up, he never saw his mother afraid of anything. And then Emma came to town and he knows that, since then, Regina hasn't spent a single day without fear. Without the knowledge that, should truth shine a light on all her evil deeds, then she'd lose him too.

He leans forwards a little on his chair and blinks up at her. Whatever happened; however bad it was to make her want to curse an entire world, Henry suspects that it didn't _just_ come from magic; that the evils in his adoptive mother's life weren't restricted to the spells in the book he found. It confuses him because he's spent so long believing that good and evil are as different as night and day, but now he knows it's not that way, he can't help but wonder if it _ever_ was.

"I'm still here," he says tentatively, and it's almost worth making a promise he isn't sure he can keep just to see the smile that blooms across Regina's face.

"I know you are," she breathes, cupping his face in her hand, thumb brushing his cheek. "I won't let you down, Henry. I **do** love you. And you are worth more than all the magic in the **world **to me, sweetheart."

There's a knock at the front door and Henry frowns, glancing towards the hallway. Regina takes a step back, passing her fingertips underneath her eyes and sniffing a little, gathering herself as best she can.

"Who's that?" Henry calls after her as she disappears to answer the door. He cranes his neck, trying to see into the hallway and is rewarded moments later when Emma strides into the room, Regina following close behind.

"Hey, kid," Emma grins at him. "Your mom invited me for dinner. That's okay, isn't it?"

Henry watches as Emma exchanges a look with Regina that he can't quite read but it doesn't really matter; for the first time in what seems like forever, he feels a lightness in his chest and wonders if magic still exists in his adoptive mother, somewhere.

"Of course!" he chirps. "Mom's making lasagna. It's my favorite."

"Yeah? Mine too," Emma smiles broadly, looking at Regina again in that way that makes Henry wonder when they stopped hating one another.

"Before dinner," Regina announces, slipping past Emma and taking the book of spells from the top of the cupboard, "I want you to have this." She hands the book to a somewhat bewildered Savior who takes it and looks down at Henry with a quizzical expression on her face.

"Uh…" Emma turns the book over and shrugs. "What's this? Bedtime reading? Cuz I have to tell you, I'm not much of a reader unless – "

"It's a book of spells," Henry tells her, and is somewhat disappointed at the way Emma holds it at arm's length as though it might actually enchant her right there and then.

"Oh, listen," Emma looks at Regina and holds the book out towards the other woman, "I don't know if I should…I mean, **magic**? I know I **have** it but…isn't this dangerous?"

"Not unless you know how to use it," Regina answers and it's clear to Henry that Emma doesn't. It's also clear to him that _that_ fact is vaguely amusing to his adoptive mother and he sees her lips twitch a little.

"Well, I don't," Emma states bluntly.

"But **I** do," Regina tells her, "which is why you're going to have it for safekeeping."

Henry looks between his mothers, one of them full of power she can't use and the other full of power that she won't use. It's an odd kind of balance that they strike, standing in front of him. But it seems right, somehow, and he settles back in his chair as Emma glances down at him and he proffers a smile of encouragement to them both.

"Are you sure?" Emma asks, cocking her head onto one side.

Regina opens her mouth to speak but Henry gets to his feet, moving to her side and slipping his hand into hers, squeezing gently.

"She's sure," he says, looking up at her. He can't really explain why, but he knows that she is. It's an exchange of power that the Evil Queen would never offer, especially when she stands to lose so much by doing it. But Henry figures that what Regina stands to gain is more than worth it and as he looks up at Emma expectantly, he can see from the look in her eyes that she believes that too.


	4. Chapter 4

FOUR – THE ICE INSIDE YOUR SOUL

"Where do they think you are?"

Emma pauses, fingers stilling over the mother-of-pearl buttons on Regina's blouse that might look suitably expensive but are a bitch to undo. Her lips, pressed against Regina's neck, part and a sigh comes out, flooding warm air over the other woman's skin. She leans back, fixing Regina with an incredulous gaze and finally her hands fall from Regina's clothes.

"Your family," Regina qualifies in a tone that sounds like she still hurts at the mere mention of it. "What do you tell them when you come here?"

It's an innocent enough question, but the fact that Regina asks it now, as they're on the cusp of what Emma had hoped would be some frustration-easing sex, puts a frown on her brow and she clambers off Regina in an ungainly fashion, leaving the other woman where Emma had pressed her against the chair when their attempts at a civil conversation failed.

Sprawling on the floor at Regina's feet, Emma puffs out her cheeks and sighs again. She can't help feeling that Regina's enquiry is loaded with the sort of caveats they've both sworn they'll never place upon this. It's become more than routine; more than habit. And Emma knows that she should be alarmed by the way it's evolving, but there's a part of her that's too weary and too lonely to do anything to stop it. Because in a town where she's lauded and praised and _loved _by almost everyone – not least parents who are her own age and a son she gave away – she needs this. She needs to be around someone who doesn't want things from her the way they do.

So when it comes to stealing time for herself to come here, Emma knows that her litany of excuses are many and varied. If she's honest, she'll say and do whatever it takes to keep returning to Regina's house.

Only, she hasn't yet analyzed _why_. But as she stares up at Regina, she can see that the other woman has, worry fleeting through a gaze of deep brown.

"Sometimes I say I'm on patrol," Emma shrugs. "Sometimes I tell them I've got paperwork to fill out. I mean, I sometimes tell them I'm coming here to see you. They think I'm…" She trails off and huffs out a wry laugh. "They think I'm trying to rehabilitate you."

She can see from the dark look that crosses Regina's features that it's _precisely_ the wrong thing to say.

"Because **that's** not the blind leading the blind," Regina comments, and she lifts her hands, pulling the open material of her blouse close together, covering the swell of her breasts encased in a scarlet bra that Emma suspects she's worn especially for their liaison.

"Okay," Emma says, and has the decency to blush a little, "maybe that's not the best word I could have used. But…I don't know, Regina. Maybe we're helping each other."

"Help." Regina says the word like it's a curse, her lips turning downwards. She looks away from Emma's enquiring eyes and sniffs with all the disdain she can summon up. There's an expression that crosses her face – Emma's seen it before but it's only now that she can identify it as the remnants of who Regina used to be. The Evil Queen of Regina's past must have been quite the domineering monarch, Emma thinks, who didn't suffer fools gladly and certainly never gave any thought to the benevolence and kindness of strangers.

Only, they're not strangers any more, are they? Emma knows more about Regina than she ever really wanted to, certainly more than she has any right to. And yet, it's the gaps in the woman's history that intrigue her the most; those years that aren't explained away in stories or her mother's versions of Fairy Tale Land. So as Regina closes her eyes and silence hangs between them, Emma can't help but wonder at how she got here, at why she wants to know and what the things that Regina doesn't say might mean more than all the carefully chosen words that she flings at others like arrows, sharp and hurtful.

"I don't really know what I'm doing," Emma says quietly, and Regina's eyes snap open to stare at her. If sympathy was Regina's thing – and Emma has no evidence to suggest that it _is_ – then that might be what she sees gazing back at her in silent, contemplative eyes of brown.

"But I know what I'm doing here," she continues. "This is easy, this part, you know?"

"Because I'm a convenient bedfellow," Regina says quietly and Emma winces at the flash of pain she sees in the other woman's eyes.

"Regina," Emma shifts on the floor and leans back on her hands, ignoring the faintest of desires to remove that pain and replace it with her lips, hands, the only salve she can think of for now, "come on. This isn't anywhere **near** convenient and you know it."

"But it **is** easy," Regina says the word with as much disdain as she can muster with her shirt coming apart and her skirt rucked halfway up her thighs. "I'm **so** glad to be of service in your difficult life with loving parents and the devotion of my son."

Emma feels herself bristle under Regina's hard, flinty gaze and she rises up, clenching her back teeth together. There's nobody in the whole of Storybrooke who can quicken her anger the way that Regina does. It swells in her chest, acrid and hot and she plants her hands onto Regina's knees, fingers digging into the silk of the stockings that Regina always wears; stockings that Emma has previously taken great delight in sliding away from skin.

"Say what you want to say," Emma growls, because from the way that Regina bites at her lip, there's something brewing in the mind that's always so carefully closed to her. It never used to bother Emma – she never used to care, let alone worry about what went on in Regina's head. But lately she's felt the way the other woman bends, but never breaks. And in those moments when they move towards one another, it almost feels like Emma's found some sort of understanding.

She can't deny that she likes it. _Wants_ it.

"Come now, dear," Regina says smoothly, with all the practiced charm of the Mayor she used to be, "you don't come here for conversation. We both know that. It's why you lie to your family and pretend to be **helping** me." Her voice is heavy over the word and Emma blanches, lips twisting.

"I'm not lying to them," Emma shakes her head, even though she knows that she is; she understands that what she and Regina do – what they have, however mangled a version of anything approaching _normal_ it might be – would never be accepted by her mother or father. Regina might not be the Evil Queen of Henry's stories, but to Snow and Charming, that's _all_ she'll ever be. And the knowledge of it sits in her chest, as cold and unmovable as a stone. "I'm sparing their feelings."

Regina lets out a surprised laugh, her head falling back onto the chair behind it. Emma leans up and over her, a bemused expression on her face.

"Oh, Emma," Regina says gently, cupping the blonde's face with a gentle, almost compassionate touch. "If only you knew what a burden it really is to spare the feelings of another."

"What do you mean?" Emma blinks and, for a second, she has all the innocence of a child shining in her eyes.

Regina strokes her thumb over Emma's cheek and it occurs to the blonde that this is the most intimate they've ever been, having an actual conversation without hating it or pretending that there isn't more at stake here than the kisses and caresses they exchange that obliterate everything else.

"This might be easy," Regina says slowly, "but it isn't right. Not for you. I've made a lot of mistakes and paid for them because, dear Savior, there's always, **always** a price. But you shouldn't have to pay it. Not for this mistake. And that's what it is, Emma. It's not…not right."

There's a depth in her gaze that takes Emma's breath away; it's sad, full of longing that Emma herself feels and it shivers out into every part of her because for all their differences – and there are too many to number – it might just be that inside, where it counts, they're not so dissimilar after all. Because this _isn't_ right. And there have been so many wrongs done by them and against them that coming together like this seemed almost natural; after all, something in this kaleidoscopic whirl of fairytales and magic had to, didn't it?

She's not a woman of words, not like her mother. No; Emma's a woman who allows her heart to guide her, just like her father always has. It clenches inside her chest as she understands, finally, that Regina's emotion, dark and thick and tainted by hurt, isn't unlike her own. So they grasp at one another where it bubbles to the surface and try to assuage the way it bleeds from wounds that might never be healed.

Lurching forwards, Emma slides through Regina's hands and crushes her mouth against the other woman's. Her fingers are like claws, tearing at Regina's shirt until it comes apart and she pushes it back from skin that she savors, nips and pulls at with her lips and teeth. Regina gasps and arches into her touch as Emma forces a hand between legs that part, hips that thrust forwards and underwear that proves no barrier at all.

It's only when Regina's fingers curl into her hair, blonde locks tangling around them, that Emma feels the strength of the other woman, how her heart pounds, hears the strangled sob that encapsulates giving up, giving in, giving away everything that she drew around her for scant protection.

The sound of it drives Emma forwards, forces her fingers inside Regina and past muscles that contract around them, accompanied by a keening moan that sounds above her head. Regina's legs come up, winding around Emma's back and she clutches at the blonde, drawing her close. They come together in an embrace that's more desperate, more needy, more _wanting_ than Emma's ever known it before. And she scrapes her teeth up Regina's neck, finding the other woman's ear and breathing against it with a hot, fevered gush of air.

"I don't know if it's right," Emma hisses, Regina undulating and moving in time with her fingers, "but it's…it's not **wrong**, is it?"

Regina groans and pulls on Emma's hair, drawing sharp pinpricks of pain that scatter across the blonde's scalp. But Emma just moves further against her, further into her, as close as she can.

"**Is** it?" Emma asks again. "Tell me it's not…**tell** me."

Her lips move to a throat that constricts under her mouth and Regina sucks in a long breath, holding it before letting it out and bearing down on Emma's hand.

"No," Regina says in a choked tone, and she sounds as though it's the worst, final confession she'll ever make, truth getting the better of her in the end, after all. "No, it's not."


	5. Chapter 5

FIVE – LIKE A HEART NEEDS A BEAT

Emma rounds the corner of Regina's desk and perches on the edge of it, blithely ignoring the glare of discomfort coming from the huge, winged chair that is something the Mayor insisted on keeping, along with her title. It used to make Regina look imposing – this office, the décor, the way she sits on the chair as though it's her throne. But the chair, the office…hell, even the _title_ is meaningless in these days of change, and Emma grins with the confidence imbued within her now that Regina isn't in charge anymore.

"Never?" she asks, cocking her head onto one side.

Regina grips the arms of her chair and meets Emma's gaze. "Never."

Emma's foot swings out and nudges Regina's knee. "Come on," she says, disbelief entering her eyes. "You're telling me that fooling around in your office has never once even occurred to you?"

Regina knows that this is Emma's hamfisted way of being provocative, of trying to flirt and there's a part of her that wants to reach out and pat Emma's knee with a conciliatory gesture, as though she's congratulating Henry for bringing home a good grade on a school project. They've never really played seduction games like normal people do before, mostly because they never needed to. Their coming together is borne of heat and passion and – Regina admits ruefully – anger: all the things that boil the senses and make rationality blurry.

"There may have been…once or twice," she relents, but Regina's a woman who's never actually _fooled around_. Every seduction she's ever carried out has been carefully planned, part of a domination of hearts and minds that started with the flesh, touch, pleasure.

"Oh yeah?" Emma looks pleased. "And did I figure in any of those thoughts?"

Regina recoils from the conceit on Emma's face. All the times they argued over trivialities; all the ways in which Regina asserted her power from behind the desk where she now sits. It was, she realizes with a sinking heart, some sort of protracted foreplay, as though they were testing one another's emotional limits like they now test one another's physical ones.

"Oh, I thought about you on my desk a lot," Regina says breezily, waving a hand in the air. "And the damage it could do to that thick skull of yours." She bares her teeth in a triumphant smile as the grin on Emma's face dissolves into a scowl.

"This is my **office**, Sheriff. My **workplace**. Sexual indiscretions carried out in here would be as cheap as that dreadful jacket you insist on wearing. Really, what do you take me for?"

"I dunno. What's on offer?" Emma cocks her head onto one side, her voice dipping to an altogether more suggestive tone.

It's almost endearing, how the girl never gives up, Regina thinks to herself. And it's more the fact that Emma _wants_ to seduce her that's impressive rather than the blatant way she's attempting to do it. But flirtation has always been a tool for them both; sexuality, a weapon with which to conquer and imprison. Emma's history – though spotty and indistinct at best – has proven that. They're more alike when it comes to this sort of thing than not, even if Regina suspects that Emma's brand of seduction is far less cloying than her own; less threatening, less dark.

When Emma sauntered into her office tonight for no reason at all other than that's where the Mayor _is_, it occurred to Regina that it might just be the closest the Savior can get to affection. She's noticed the change in Emma lately: the way she turns up at the house with Henry, not looking for the fevered, wordless sexual exchanges that started all of this, but rather seeking a place that has Regina in it.

Regina can't say it doesn't make her uncomfortable, because in as much as she sways towards it – and how can she not? Emma is light and goodness and purity and reckless optimism and all the things that Regina once was – she understands that attachment will only make the severing of that bond more painful in the end.

"You've got this big old desk," Emma is saying as Regina blinks and looks up at her. "Phyllis has gone home for the night to her many, **many** children and her…"

Breaking her train of thought, Emma narrows her gaze and stares at Regina. "Please tell me that in Fairy Tale Land, your secretary didn't live in a shoe."

Regina suppresses the smile that springs to her mouth. "Really, dear," she sighs, in an attempt at feigning irritability, "your propensity for believing the silly stories you heard as a child is alarmingly ignorant."

Emma frowns as though Regina is speaking a foreign language, then shakes her head, blonde curls whispering over her shoulders. "Whatever," she mutters, before sliding a little closer on the desk to where Regina is sitting, a cocky grin on her mouth that Regina has a sudden desire to remove with her own.

"Admit it," Emma shrugs, "you must have wondered what it would be like."

"Even if I** have**," Regina replies sternly, "unlike **you**, Sheriff, **I** take my job seriously."

She stops, then, because what point is there in taking _anything_ seriously anymore, when she's _nothing_ to this town or the people in it? It was easy, Regina thinks, to get caught up in the bureaucracy of running Storybrooke; easy to believe that it was all real when she was only ever living on borrowed time. Stolen time. Time she hacked out of a life that was left bleeding with no hope of recovery. And this job, this office…even this _desk_ became something of a totem for a new life that Regina had so desperately wanted. Her happy ending.

_But that's all gone now_, she thinks, as Emma lets out a small noise and insinuates herself between Regina's chair and the desk. And what she has left is this: an existence in which she can't seem to stay away from the Savior who should be her unhappy end.

"I take my job seriously," Emma intones, her boots hooking underneath Regina's chair and sliding the other woman across the floor so that eventually Regina ends up between Emma's legs. "But even the Mayor and the Sheriff need to have a little fun, right?"

She leans down, brushing her lips over Regina's in an oddly affectionate gesture. And Regina lets her.

When Emma leans back, clearly proud of herself, Regina glowers a little at the smug expression directed towards her.

"I think you're forgetting," she says, ignoring the tempting presence of legs on either side of her, wrapped in skintight denim that Emma still insists on wearing in favor of something more befitting a Savior, "that you and I aren't the Mayor or the Sheriff anymore, are we?"

She sees the frown that burrows into Emma's forehead, how the blonde shifts slightly on the desk. Emma's not so arrogant now, reminded that their life in Storybrooke is really little better than a charade that everyone's playing to the best of their ability. But it's when the game ends, Regina thinks, that that true test will begin. When Emma stops thinking of Regina as the Mayor, who can be toppled from her high horse with sexual shenanigans and sheer force of will, and starts to see the broken queen who's always been just beneath the surface somewhere. _Everywhere_.

"Okay," Emma says equivocally. "So I'm the Savior and you're the…uh…the, uh – "

"Evil Queen?" Regina's eyebrows rise. She can't remember ever feeling less like her old self, nor can she ever remember not wanting to, either.

Now she rises from her chair with and assumes an imperious stance. Now her hands slide up the length of Emma's thighs until they rest on the gap between waistband and shirt, where Emma's jacket fails to cover the sliver of visible skin. Regina scrapes her fingers along the swell of flesh and hears a noise in Emma's throat, somewhere between appreciation and apprehension.

"You're not the Evil Queen anymore," Emma whispers, her knees spreading a little wider as Regina moves between them, leans in towards the blonde until their lips are almost touching.

"Oh, **aren't** I?" Regina asks. And it's easy, somehow, to slip back into that role; to assume that woman's voice and her demeanor and the way she always invaded other people's space. It's as false now as it was back then, in that other land. But if Regina knows anything, it's how to put on a mask so convincing that it fools everyone. She doesn't imagine that the Savior will be any different, given where – and _who_ – she comes from.

Emma chuckles as Regina's mouth descends onto her neck, closing her eyes as fingers scrabble around her waist, dipping into the small of her back, nails pressing into the flesh there.

"You have no idea what I'm – " Regina begins, but Emma's fingers wind in her hair, tugging her head back so that she can fasten her mouth to Regina's and kiss her with the sort of voracity that would quell even the fiercest of threats.

After that, after their bodies press against one another and hands scrabble for purchase on clothing, caution is thrown to the wind. The rules that Regina makes for herself, like curses, are broken with nothing more than a kiss. When they finally wrench themselves away from the embrace, Regina's eyes are dark with failure, Emma's bright with desire.

"I'm sorry," Regina whispers, trying to gulp the words back as soon as they fall from her lips. But she _is_; she can't be anything else when the only things holding her up are Emma's arms, wrapped around her body.

"I know," Emma says simply. Her legs hook around Regina, drawing the other woman closer and when they kiss again, it's filled with a crackling, disturbing familiarity that lies on their tongues and spins around their heads. Regina feels it rush through her and almost pulls away, but Emma's hands are on her skin, pushing past a silk shirt and scraping over a lace bra. Regina moans into Emma's mouth and feels herself begin to fall, just like before; but where once there was a black chasm opening up to receive her, now there's only light and she bends towards it. Magic, after all, was the beginning. It's only right that it should be the end, too.


	6. Chapter 6

SIX – I WOULD NOT SLEEP IN THIS BED OF LIES

Emma strains beneath Regina's touch, back arching and a strangled sound escaping from her throat. She closes her eyes and pulls, the headboard creaking where her wrists are tethered to it by one of Regina's expensive scarves, knotted impossibly tightly around her skin. Emma tugs on it particularly hard; at the back of her mind there's a recalcitrant urge to return the tortures Regina has bestowed upon her over the last hour by destroying something she could never afford to replace. It's a childish wont but, as Emma lets out a cry of sheer anguish and thrusts herself towards Regina once more, it's one that she can't control.

The truth of the matter is that control hasn't ever really been Emma's strong point when it comes to Regina. And pretty speeches and explanations to her parents aside, Emma has begun to temper that lack of control with something close to trust. It bothers her, deep down, because she hasn't trusted anyone for so many years that the word itself has lost meaning. But with Regina, through Henry, Emma knows that she's started to place her faith in the former Evil Queen.

It strikes her as laughable, even though she knows it's not. Even though having faith in Regina has brought her here time and again in ever-increasing circles of desperation to feel something that she hasn't, _wouldn't_ let herself feel for years. Having faith in Regina has made Emma _care_. Having faith in Regina has made Emma offer herself up, a sacrificial lamb for the slaughter.

Only, it's not slaughter that Regina has in mind today. Not this time. And not with Emma tied to the bed, naked and sweating and aching for the orgasm that's being denied to her.

"Jesus," Emma mutters, and feels, rather than hears the chuckle that vibrates between her legs. Her hips cant upwards again and she wonders absently where Regina learned to do this – to make Emma reach towards a bliss that's always been out of reach.

"Patience, dear," Regina says, lifting her head and staring up the length of Emma's taut body, quivering like a bowstring stretched to capacity.

Emma grunts, clearly irritated, and thrusts with her hips again. She's been lying like this, bound to the bed, for longer than she deems necessary. Her wrists are beginning to chafe – and how the hell is she going to explain _that_ away? – and her shoulders are sore, but she will absolutely, positively _not_ beg for release.

Unfortunately, Regina's more than aware of her stubborn nature and that's why she's been kept hovering on the point of orgasm for far too long. Long enough so that her entire body feels like it's one giant nerve ending, blisteringly raw and aching.

Regina's tongue sweeps across her flesh and Emma whines – she _whines_ – as fingers push inside her. She longs to touch Regina, to feel the other woman's skin beneath her fingertips, her nails, her mouth and tongue. And in all the ways Regina's ever been untouchable, it's the removal of choice that drives Emma to distraction, because she's never wanted to pull the other woman closer than she does right now.

And that's the problem, really. Underneath it all, under the passion and the resentment that's always near the surface, there's an odd intimacy about what she has with Regina. Somehow, over the preceding months of physical gratification, Emma knows that there's been an emotional one too. In the melee of whispered confessions that don't come easily for either of them, Emma has started to feel comfortable. Safe, even.

It's terrifying.

She's only aware that Regina has stopped touching her when the other woman presses her fingers into Emma's thighs and lifts her head.

"Where did you go?"

Emma blinks, craning her head so that she can see Regina, half-shadowed in the dim light, tousled hair making her look more human, more beautiful than Emma's seen her before.

The fingers on her thighs become a caress, scraping gentle lines of sensation that scatters down towards the most sensitive parts of her, making her stomach suddenly dip. Gasping, Emma shakes her head, damp tendrils of hair clinging to her forehead.

"I'm here," Emma forces out. But she knows that the moment is gone; all she can focus on is the restraint holding her back, the discomfort of aching for so long, the trickle of sweat between her breasts and the air on her flesh starting to chill it.

"No, you're not," Regina rises up between Emma's legs. She presses the back of her hand to her mouth, lips shining and wet. There's a resigned expression on her face as she leans back on her haunches and eyes Emma with a scrutiny that makes the blonde shift on the bed, pulling at her tied wrists again.

"Look," Emma says with a grumbling sigh, "just…just get it over and – "

"Get it **over**?" Regina's head jerks back on her neck and she gives a snort of laughter that's as cold as the air creeping over Emma's body. "If you'd told me that **this**," she throws out a hand and waves it across Emma's naked form, "was such an **ordeal** for you, I'd have thrown you against the wall downstairs so that you could at least make a quick exit."

The hurt on her features is palpable and Emma feels panic rise in her chest because this isn't what she wants. And the girl who never wanted anything from anyone that might result in giving due recompense finally understands a truth about Regina that's never occurred to her before: this _means_ something. To _both_ of them.

"It's not – " she begins, then tugs at the scarf wrapped around her wrists and grimaces. "Regina, take this off."

Before the other woman can move, Emma yanks at the scarf, only tightening the knot that Regina had fastened in a deliberately slow, careful, taunting manner.

"Take it** off**," Emma demands. "Regina, take it **off** me!"

There's a shrill note to her voice that propels Regina forwards and Emma turns her head to one side as the other woman leans over her and picks at the knotted scarf, finally undoing it and leaning back in surprise at the way Emma scrambles away across the bed, hunched over and rubbing at her wrists.

They're silent for a moment. Regina lifts her head and glances towards the window where there's snow falling heavily outside, an almost impenetrable curtain that's made the afternoon sky dark and ominous.

"I should have known," Regina says, her voice grating over the words. "You don't like to be tied down."

Emma looks at her through a curtain of hair before pushing it back and rubbing at her wrists where red marks are beginning to fade. She isn't sure whether Regina meant such a loaded comment, whether the faint note of derision is colored by fear or loathing. Either way, it rankles in her chest and she shakes her head vehemently, lip curling a little.

"Stop it," she spits. "Just…**stop** it, Regina."

"Stop what, dear? It was only moments ago that you were desperately hoping I wouldn't stop," Regina says coolly, and Emma blanches at the mask that slips down so easily over the other woman's face. Even after all this forced intimacy, there's still a part of Regina that nobody gets to see – not even Emma. And change comes to a grinding halt, ticking between them as seconds pass.

"What **happened** to you?" Emma finally grinds out, chin jutting forwards and a gaze of steely scrutiny trapping Regina where she half-sits, half-lies on the other side of the bed. "To make you this way, what happened?"

Regina's arms creep around her body, covering her breasts. "Does it even matter anymore?"

"If we're going to keep doing this, then yeah, it does," Emma says and her voice is a little more gentle, a little more coaxing. She crawls across the bed and peers into Regina's face and it shocks her how much she wants to know, how much there is still to discover and how troubled Regina appears at the idea of being stripped bare this way.

"**Are** we going to keep doing this?" Regina asks quietly.

Emma lets out a sigh. She could try to stop – she's even considered it before now. But every time she does, there's an incessant need within her that draws her back here. At first she dismissed it as a physical salve for whatever's not right inside her, but now she knows differently. Now she knows that it's not the last traces of good in Regina that bring her to this bed time and again. No; it's the darkness and pain and lost years behind the other woman that echo in Emma's own life. It's having someone who understands how it feels to be so bitter that the happiness her mother likes to espouse really does seem like a fairytale, in the end: a fable created by others to engender hope that simply doesn't exist in the real world.

And maybe it's not healthy, Emma thinks, but it's what they have. It's who they are.

"I'm not going anywhere," she tells Regina. "So…are you gonna tell me what happened?"

Regina takes a breath, lets it out slowly. "It would change too much," she finally admits. "It would change how you see your mother…how you feel about who we were, she and I. "

"What does **that** mean?"

"It means that change isn't always a good thing. That Snow White needs to remain…" Regina hesitates and chews on her lower lip. "She needs to remain good, in your eyes. I don't want you to blame your mother like I – like I blamed mine."

It strikes Emma, then, like a night blooming flower, opening dark and lustrous inside her. She reaches out, laying her hand on Regina's thigh, seeing how the other woman shivers at her touch.

"You care what I think? What I…what I **feel**? You care about **her**?"

Regina's eyes shine briefly in the muted light of the room and her lips curl in distant scorn. "I'm not much of a one for sentiment, Emma. Or don't you know that by now?"

Emma laughs softly. "What I know, Regina, is that you're lying when you say you don't care about anyone but Henry."

She watches as Regina stares at her before jerking a thumb at her own chest. "Superpower, remember?"

Regina's arms slide from where they're clutched around her body, a hand brushing over Emma's where it lies on her leg.

"That's neither super nor a power, dear," she states wryly, but her hand lingers over Emma's, fingers tracing the dips between Emma's knuckles with a rare affection. "You see what you want to see, we both know that."

"Then tell me you don't care about me. Tell me I'm wrong." Emma moves closer to Regina and, even though they're barely touching, it feels like there's nothing much between them anymore. Nothing that counts, anyway.

"You're wrong," Regina says simply, quickly. _Too_ quickly.

Emma cocks her head onto one side and when Regina looks into her eyes, the dark possibilities that they contain are almost too numerous to contemplate. It's an odd feeling that ignites in her chest, the merest spark of something…something _other_. Something honest. Emma's hand moves and her fingers slide between Regina's, holding on tight. Because sometimes, that's all anyone can do.

"I don't believe you."


End file.
